Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Are our fates written in stone?

The Oedipus Rex play got me thinking. Are our destiny and fate are set and written in stone? That we can't never ever change it no matter how hard we try? That it will always come back to you, if not today, someday? When Oedipus's parents find out that their son is going to kill his father and sleep with his mother, they took actions, inhumaned actions so that the prophecy won't come true. They figure, getting rid of the son is the only way to get rid of the prophecy. But along the way, the messenger just can't kill the baby; thus Oedipus lives. Then, when Oedipus has grown up and finds out about the prophecy, he too wants to avoid from killing his father (which he thought was his father). So he ran away to a far far away place. Surprise, surprise, by avoiding his fate, he unknowingly fulfilled his fate when he accidentally kills his father and marries his mother. So I guess what Sophocles is trying to say here is that, no matter how far you run away from your fate, it will always come back to bite you in the rear end someday.

1 comment:

I like your question. Literally, no. But, metaphorically, yes. Stones are everywhere, and unfortunately, we cannot run away from it! Sad...Unlike Oedipus, I think we are lucky not having our fate being read to us. Now that would be scary! For as long as I could recall, I think Oedipus's character is the most unfortunate character I've ever known-unconciously killing your own father, slept with your own mother and had children with her, what a terrible way to live, eh?